Silence is Silver
by Emilie Monaghan
Summary: When Loki is returned to Asgard he was wearing a muzzle. This story chronicles the events that led to him being silenced.


**Authors note: It always bothered me that Loki was wearing a muzzle at the end of the movie. I wanted to know what prompted that action and then this story popped up. I tried to make it a legit story but it turned out pretty cracky. Please forgive me.**

By the time Loki finally found the strength to crawl into a sitting position, the battle was long over. He managed to drag himself over to a set of stairs to sit only to find an arrow pointed at his face. The 'Avengers' were standing in formation in front of him.

"If it's all the same to you," Loki said suppressing a groan "I think I'll have that drink now." With that said he essentially collapsed onto the stairs. Much to everyone's surprise Tony did get up and bring Loki a glass of scotch. It was sadly reassuring to everyone when he downed the rest of the bottle himself. Once all of this was done the room became uncomfortably quiet. What were they supposed to do now?

"You'll want to improve the defenses in your tower when you rebuild. This was pathetically easy to break into." Loki said to Tony. Thor looked at his brother with disappointment for mocking someone who had just given him a drink. Hawkeye felt somewhat differently.

"Enough of this." He said pulling his bow up to face Loki. Before he could fire both Thor and Captain America pushed the arrow away.

"I will not allow you to kill my brother." Thor said starring Hawkeye down.

"Thor's right, we need to bring Loki back to S.H.I.E.L.D. Then Fury can take care of him." Steve said.

"Yeah, it's not like Loki would be able to escape from a top secret S.H.I.E.L.D facility. Oh wait he did it twice already."Tony said as he looked for another bottle of scotch.

"I think I like this plan." Loki said with a smile. Natasha dived at Loki and grabbed his throat.

"You need to shut up now." She hissed.

"Remove your hands from my brother." Thor said pushing Natasha's hands away. "Loki will be returning with me to Asgard. Where he belongs." He finished strongly.

"This isn't just your decision Thor. Around here people have to pay for their crimes." Hawkeye said.

"Yeah, we're a little touchy about the whole global domination thing. It's one of those little things that always seems to set us off." Tony said walking back over to his bar.

"Hey, Tony, you maybe want to take a break from the drinks?" Bruce, who had shrunk back to normal size, said following him.

"My short answer to that would be no." Tony said handing Bruce a bottle of something.

"The Earths mightiest heroes." Loki said with a wide grin.

"Loki." Thor said looking annoyed.

"Brother?" Loki asked, seeming to enjoy himself more as time passed. It was at this point that Bruce left Tony and decided to see if he could help.

"Look, why doesn't everyone just calm down, put down their weapons," He said noticing that Hawkeye had been raising his bow, "and then maybe we can figure out a way to solve this."

"I got it!" Tony said walking toward the door. "Just give me ten minutes."

"He…Went to get Schwarma didn't he?" Bruce asked.

"Most likely." Steve said with a groan.

"That seems a bit rude." Loki commented.

"Maybe it'd be best if you didn't talk for a while." Bruce said to Loki. Loki responded with a smile so large and unnerving that it made Bruce wish he hadn't said anything.

"For the last time; Asgard is the only safe place to hold Loki and the Tesseract." Thor said.

"What makes you so sure that you can handle either of them?" Steve asked.

"Our world is equipped to handle objects like the Tesseract. And as for Loki, I think I can handle my own brother." Thor said with a smile

"Adopted." Loki added.

"This is ridiculous. Let me shoot him!" Hawkeye demanded.

"No!" Both Thor and Steve shouted.

"Listen to your leader, Bird boy." Loki added. That seemed to be enough for Hawkeye who prepared to shoot whether anyone wanted him to or not. Then Tony ran in.

"Ok this should do it." Tony said, walking over to where Loki was sitting. "I made this out of some of my old armor. It should fit." He said pulling up a ark shaped piece of metal.

"What exactly is that for?" Bruce asked.

"This is for him, and for us." Tony said, smiling at the piece of metal.

"What is it?" Steve asked.

"A muzzle." Tony said.

"What?" Natasha asked.

"I am going to muzzle Fido here so he will shut up and the rest of us won't kill each other." Tony said.

"I can live with that." Hawkeye said lowering the bow.

"I can't." Steve said. "Tony we're not putting a muzzle on him."

"No it's fine. It fits right onto his helmet see." Tony said slapping the muzzle onto a bewildered Loki. "Say something." Tony said. Rather than respond Loki just glared. "See, can't say a word. Plus we now have the added bonus of not having to see him smile. Which, let's admit, was just downright creepy." Loki's eyes lit up at this and it was clear to everyone in the room that he was smiling under the mask.

"I guess there could be **some** value to it. Temporarily." Bruce said quietly.

"This is ridiculous, Tony take that off of him before Thor makes you." Steve said. "Right Thor?….Thor?" Steve repeated when he didn't hear a response. He turned to see that Thor was looking at the mouth guard with interest.

"There is merit to Starks suggestion." Thor said slowly.

"Thor!" Steve yelled.

"Well it's not as though the device were causing him any pain." Thor said turning to Loki. "Are you, in pain brother?" Thor asked. Loki repeated his earlier look of disgust and Thor seemed satisfied. "He'll be fine until I get him back to Asgard." Thor said with a smile.

"So Thor is taking Loki and the tesseract back to Asgard, the aliens are all gone, and Loki's quiet and contained." Tony said.

"He's not exactly contained." Steve said.

"He is now." Tony said slapping a pair of what looked like mammoth hand cuffs on Loki.

"How did you make those so fast?" Bruce asked.

"Not important. What is important is that for the moment all of our problems are solved. So what do you say we all take an hour for ourselves and go get some schwarma?" Tony said. Everyone in the room knew that Tony was currently drunk but at the moment no one wanted to argue. So they left a fully secured Loki and went to get something to eat. Loki sat on the steps angerly mulling over the fact that they probably wouldn't bring anything back for him.

**So for those of you who don't know me I am absolutely addicted to reviews. Hint, hint, hin..Just review.**


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